Clarification on Organizers Participation/Voice

[Scott E. Weiner, Ph.D.]

I noticed that neither Mary's nor my email asking about the next organizer's meeting, which we thought was going to be on this coming Monday was responded to. It also seems like both of us are getting fewer emails from the group. 

 

1. Are the organizers who were not selected for the board still part of an organizer's meeting that would include the board and the organizers?
2. What decisions are reserved for the board and which decisions are for votes of both board and organizers?
3. What role is left for the organizers--as committed as those selected to the board--in having a voice and participating in organizing, discussing, deciding about SA.

 

Best Wishes, Scott

 

 

Scott E. Weiner, Ph.D.

Cognitive Engineer

Minds | Emotions | Actions | Life ReDesign

ScottEWeiner.com

scott_e...@yahoo.com

212.360.7222

 

[Jonathan T]

Scott,

These are all good questions. We have a very recently elected board, and we don't have the answers yet, but we have a board meeting next week and the role of organizers who are not board members will be on the agenda. Many nonprofit boards are organized with committees chaired by a board member with other volunteers on the committee, so that's certainly one way to go.

All of us on the board value the efforts and opinions of anyone willing to put their shoulder to the wheel including you, Mary, Joe, Meredith, Hillary, and others. So stay tuned, more information will be forthcoming soon, and we hope all organizers have September 29 and October 27 on their calendars. For example, the meeting and greeting function was well done and continues to be very necessary.

Jonathan

[Christopher Biemer]

Personally, I favor a lightweight, transparent board that seeks input from anyone who considers him or herself a part of SA-NYC. In my view, our role is just to:

1) make the time-sensitive and/ or otherwise tough calls that need to be made when there's a close split in opinion among the general SA crowd, and

2) to be legally accountable so that SA-NYC can form a formal non-profit organization and reap all of the benefits that follow


So I echo Jonathan's point that we're still getting used to our new roles and are currently figuring out the best way to further define them. So far, we've just been talking about how to choose venues and speakers in the shorter term so that we can be in the habit of having planning completed for 2 or 3 assemblies in advance rather than just 1. We haven't even had our first in-person board meeting yet, and I think we're all pretty eager to discuss these questions as well. We'll have our first crack at all of that on Monday evening (exact time and location are still TBD). Personally, I don't see a reason to exclude anyone from that meeting.

Off the top of my head, since we were doing two general organizers' planning meetings per month before (per assembly, essentially), it seems like one [board + other organizers] meeting per month to gather input followed by one board-only meeting per month to call pressing votes might make sense. However, if we reach a point of efficiency at which we are planning 2 or 3 assemblies for every pair of those meetings, we could proportionally reduce the frequency of both kinds of meetings to once every 2 or 3 months.

Does that seem fair? That was just my immediate personal brainstorm, so that model is brand new to the rest of the board too.